


Red Sky at Morning

by darth_vaporwave



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano - freeform, Fic within a Fic, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Padawan Obi-Wan, Supporting Cast of Clone Wars Characters, Tano & Kenobi, That's Not How The Force Works, Young Anakin Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 21:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16840432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darth_vaporwave/pseuds/darth_vaporwave
Summary: Master Ahsoka’s off on a short mission without Obi-Wan, which suits Anakin just fine. There’s something up with Obi-Wan. That last mission he went on by himself, where he got hurt, really took something out of him, and Anakin’s going to figure out what it is. But first, he’s got to figure out why their filing project went so wrong. . .(This fic is set within another fic, "Tano and Kenobi" by FireflyFish)





	1. Is Forged Iron

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FireflyFish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireflyFish/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Tano and Kenobi](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9254897) by [FireflyFish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireflyFish/pseuds/FireflyFish). 



> This fic is a gift for my friend FireflyFish and is based off of characters and situations in her fic, "Tano and Kenobi." I know it's tiresome to hear "if you haven't read that story, then this story won't make much sense," but I'm afraid that's probably true.
> 
> This is set some years after the current the T&K timeline. In this fic, Anakin is about eight and Obi-Wan about twenty-four.
> 
> "Raktajino" is pilfered from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

“Just a _little_ farther,” said Anakin, his hand holding tight to Obi-Wan’s. “But don’t rush! We’ve got the time. Master isn’t taking off till fifteen-thirty hours.”

“Yes, Dr. Skywalker,” said Obi-Wan somberly. “I will do as you say, Dr. Skywalker.”

“Yeah, that’ll be the day.”

Anakin grinned up at him. Obi-Wan’s eyes softened, but the smile he gave back was thin and tired. And he was obviously trying to hide that hand he pressed against his side, waiting until Anakin had turned to wave at Kit before he did it.

“You have to admit that you’re hardly a model patient,” said Obi-Wan. “If you’ll remember, the last time there was an outbreak of Corellian fever in the creche--”

“Gee, maybe we _had_ better hurry,” Anakin said quickly, “it’s closer to fifteen-thirty than I thought--”

“--I found you asleep inside Master Plo’s Aethersprite. Twice.”

“I don’t remember that at all.” Anakin did the trick that got him out of light trouble sometimes, widening his eyes and biting his lip. “Must’ve been the fever.”

Obi-Wan kept a straight face. It was even more fun that he’d mastered _that_ trick, because Anakin had to try more outrageous things to break it.

“Mmm,” was all he said, even when Anakin sent him a sly look.

But instead of pretending to hide a smile, Obi-Wan’s eyes went distant.

Anakin frowned. That wasn’t right.

“We-ell,” he said, tugging on Obi-Wan’s hand to bring his attention back where it belonged, “I do remember the creche was so loud, with everybody coughing and crying and all. I couldn’t get any sleep. Besides, you don’t have fever. And your quarters are quiet.”

“Quiet? My quarters? With you building that droid in the middle of it?”

“It’s my independent project for robotics!”

Anakin kept a firm hold on his hand as they braved the corridors to the hangar bay. Lots of people tried to stop them and say how glad they were to see Obi-Wan upright and not being cranky in an infirmary bed; but Obi-Wan was radiating spikes like a hedgehog-mole, so Anakin fielded the lot of them. “We’re on our way to say goodbye to Master Soka!” he said, waving and not stopping.

Obi-Wan squeezed his hand, like he was grateful. When Anakin peeped up, he was wearing a quiet little smile that made Anakin’s heart puff up big and proud.

He stopped them before a short flight of steps. If Obi-Wan’s side was bugging him, this could be tricky. Well, half a mountain _had_ fallen on him in a landslide. Anakin’s insides did weird squiggly things when he remembered Master Windu telling Master Soka that they’d had to _dig Obi-Wan out_.

“Okay, we’ve got some stairs here, so we’ll want to be careful. Hmm, maybe we should take the lifts--”

“Anakin, I am perfectly capable of walking up eleven steps.” Oh, cranky. Then he sighed. “Just. . . keep hold of my hand and I’ll. . . be fine.”

“Of _course_ ,” said Anakin.

Obi-Wan needed him. Anakin wasn’t going anywhere.

* * *

“Your shadows have arrived for your send-off,” said Master Plo in his slow, deep voice.

Ahsoka didn’t need to peer out the ship’s window to sense Anakin’s swirling brightness. She ducked down the loading ramp and waved. On the other side of the bay, Anakin flailed his free hand in the air, the other hand hanging tight to Obi-Wan’s.

Her padawan still looked too rough for comfort, his face pale and thin and his eyes bracketed by shadows. His movements weren’t fluid; he walked with a stiff delicacy that must have been masking lingering pain. Anakin, still in the role of caregiver to which he’d appointed himself weeks ago, towed him past the rows of ships, stopping to point out a puddle of oil for Obi-Wan to avoid and guiding him in a wide path around a trundling maintenance droid.

Ahsoka had to turn around and fiddle with the hydraulics on the ramp so that neither of them would see her face. Anakin knew exactly how cute he was; let him know that _you_ knew it too and he would be merciless.

“Master Soka!”

She turned at his cry and received the full force of her future grand-padawan in the midriff.

“ _Oof._ Hey now, are you Ani or an armadillo bear?” she laughed, squeezing him.

“Sorry!” He sent her a twinkling look, not looking very sorry at all.

She rubbed his tawny hair, sending him darting back to Obi-Wan’s side.

“We’ve come to see you off, Master,” said Obi-Wan, allowing Anakin to attach himself to his hand again. She pretended not to notice how he favored his left side.

She wanted to reach out and ruffle his hair, too, but he was too old now; and she knew he was still feeling too tender, in a way more than physical, from the disaster on their last mission that had landed him in the infirmary for six weeks. She contented herself with straightening the neck of Anakin’s robes, which always managed to get pulled apart.

“It’s only a small relief mission to Dantooine. I’ll be back before you’ll have time to miss me.”

“Don’t worry, Master,” said Anakin. He put his shoulders back, perhaps in an attempt to look taller. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything too crazy.”

“That should be my line, I believe,” said Obi-Wan.

Anakin gave him a sweet smile that fooled nobody.

“Perhaps together you can keep each other out of trouble.” Ahsoka tried her own charming twinkle at Obi-Wan, who sent her quite the dark look.

“We can but try, Master,” he said dryly.

She couldn’t resist, then, and folded him in a hug. “It won’t be the same without you, padawan.” _And soon you won’t be my padawan anymore._

It ached, to think that there would be more and more missions where this would be the norm. No matter how she told herself not to dread what hadn’t yet come to pass, the reality remained: Obi-Wan was almost ready to take the Trials. Her pride in him, at the wonderful man he’d become, wasn’t eclipsed by the sorrow at the coming change, but it was tied up in it.

She was probably going to be moping all over Master Plo, this mission.

Obi-Wan’s hand, resting on her shoulder-blade, tightened for a moment. But when he spoke, his voice was low and calm.

“We await your safe return, Master.”

She pulled back, smiling at them both.

Anakin attached himself to her waist again, mumbling against her ribcage, “May the Force be with you, Master.”

“And with you, my future grand-padawan.”

She waved as she ducked back up the ramp. Master Plo was already in the pilot’s seat, running through the start-up sequence. From the co-pilot’s seat, she checked her systems while keeping one eye on the viewport. Sure enough, Anakin scrambled up onto a loading fork so he could get a proper view of their take-off. Her cheeks ached from smiling as she waved through the viewport and got a double-armed wave in return. Obi-Wan, standing at the foot of the loader, raised his hand in farewell.

A lump sat in her throat as the ship rose into the air and turned, angling its nose at the mouth of the bay.

“Obi-Wan will be ready for the Trials soon,” said Master Plo, halfway to a question. But he was a smart man; he’d know she had mixed feelings about it.

She knew that was natural, when a padawan and a master were close. Several times now Master Windu had mentioned a seminar devoted to detaching a master from their padawan; she’d nodded and made polite answers and escaped as fast as she could every time. Just because it was a common problem didn’t mean she wanted to face it yet.

Pale sunlight streamed through the viewport as their ship slid smoothly into the open air and arced into the looping speeder stream.

She said, “Just a little while longer. This last mission. . . it’ll take him some time to recover from what happened.”

“But he will recover,” said Master Plo with gentle reassurance.

“Of course,” she said, thankful for his kindness. “I just. . . wish he wasn’t so hard on himself all the time. I’ve tried all these years to help him be less harsh with himself, but he’s. . .” _Stubborn_ sounded unkind, but that’s honestly what it felt like at times: that in refusing to see his own virtues, Obi-Wan obstinately clutched at a version of himself that did everything wrong. It made her heart ache.

“Experience, if we learn from it, gives us the benefit of wisdom,” said Master Plo. “We can offer our perspective to others, but they must learn its truth for themselves.”

 _Isn’t_ that _the truth._ “And waiting for that is sometimes as hard as figuring it out ourselves.”

“You are wise, Ahsoka,” said Master Plo with gentle warmth.

As he guided their ship higher, she rested her head against the back of her chair, watching the towering buildings shrink beneath them. The pale atmosphere stripped away to blackness, and the diamond-points of the stars flared in the void of space. She took the memory of Anakin’s arms around her waist and Obi-Wan’s hand on her shoulder and tucked them into her heart.

 _You are fortunate,_ came the thought, like a whisper through the Force, _to be so loved, and to love in return_.

 _Yes_ , she returned. _I am._

* * *

Anakin was always in danger of moping when Master Soka went away. Today Obi-Wan sure was, too. He seemed to be worse off than Anakin, even. So Anakin immediately made plans for an emergency cheer-up session involving cake and raktajino: sugar for himself, caffeine for Obi-Wan. He’d stashed some cake from the mess-hall earlier, so they wouldn’t even have to brave the crowds.

But just outside the hangar bay, their plans were thwarted by a tall, loud, Kiffar-shaped obstacle.

“Kenobiiii,” said Quinlan Vos, scooping him into a hug.“I see they finally let you out of bed!”

Anakin was pretty sure Quin had just come back from a long mission that must have had him disguised as a mound of dirt. Frantic mouse-droids beeped around his feet, vacuuming up clumps of reddish dirt that marched backwards from him in boot-shaped prints. He rubbed his face against Obi-Wan's cheek, smearing a burnt-scarlet line like lipstick. 

“Ugh,” said Obi-Wan, shoving Quin off him. The front of his robe had a dusty Quin-shaped imprint on it. He scowled. “I see they banned _you_ from the baths.”

“That’s a healthy coating of success," said Quin. He patted himself down, shedding more dust, making the mouse droids beep in dismay. "You’re not looking too hot, Kenobi. Want a nerf-back ride?”

“Do you want a thumb in your eye?”

“So cheerful today,” said Quin, knocking him on the shoulder, but he gave Anakin a clear ‘How’s he doing?’ look. Anakin spread his hands and shrugged.

“Heard Master Tano’s off to Dantooine,” said Quin as they started walking. The mouse droids followed them, and some young padawans, passing them by in a clump on their way to lightsaber practice, giggled. “Where’s that leave you?”

Obi-Wan, spotting his reflection in a passing window, saw the a red mark on his cheek and growled. "About to take you to the Room of a Thousand Fountains and drown you."

"Hey, that stuff's great for your skin! I hear they use it at those fancy spas uptown. You could use a nice healthy glow."

Anakin didn't want Obi-Wan to land himself back in the infirmary when he busted something. He'd only just gotten him back!

"Master Nu got some Force artifacts from some dig," he said. "Obi-Wan's gonna help her file them."

“Ugh," said Quin, like he'd rather Obi-Wan drowned him. "Kenobi. Why torture yourself? If I were you, I’d be lying around letting your fan club feed me grapes. Any of them’d be happy to volunteer. Jeera’s still hoping you’ll take her on as a padawan one day.”

“ _I_ can feed Obi-Wan grapes,” Anakin said indignantly. “Only I wouldn’t, ‘cause he hates ‘em.”

“ _You_ have classes,” said Obi-Wan.

“Yeahh -- but I asked Master Sinube if I could help you instead of coming to class and he told me I could do an independent study.” He beamed at Obi-Wan, who looked less than thrilled.

“I hardly think that’s a good use of your time, Anakin.”

“Oh, let the kid coddle you,” said Quin, whacking him on the back. Obi-Wan's glare was at least twice as dirty as Quin was. “Stop blaming yourself for half a mountain falling on you and enjoy the attention. Unless he wants to come with me and do something better than boring archive work. What do you say, kid? At my side you’ll learn Shadow secrets.” He waggled his eyebrows.

That sounded at least a thousand times more interesting than reading in the archives, but Anakin wasn’t going to abandon Obi-Wan for any amount of fun.

“No thanks,” he said. “I’m right where I wanna be.”

“Ah, well. It’s your funeral.” Then he leaned over and scrubbed Anakin’s hair into his face.

“Argh!” Anakin swiped at him. “You nerf-brain!”

“Bye, Master Kenobi, Padawan Skywalker,” said Quin, waving. “Enjoy your nap in the archives!”

They watched him saunter away, his escort of mouse droids whizzing after him.

“Whoever _does_ accept him as a Master will need to have a will of iron,” Obi-Wan said.

“He’ll be fun,” said Anakin, “but steal all their food all the time.”

He let Obi-Wan walk in silence with his thoughts as they cut across the main hall toward the lifts. When they got to the row of shiny bronze doors, Obi-Wan blinked and looked around as if not understanding how they’d gotten there. Anakin punched the ‘up’ button and rocked on his toes a couple times.

“What’re you thinking about?” he asked.

Obi-Wan glanced down at him.

“Is what Quin said true? Do you blame yourself for getting hurt?”

Obi-Wan’s eyes slid off to the side. His fingers, red from Quin's dust, twisted in the sleeve of his robe.

“Had I been quicker,” he said eventually, “I wouldn’t have fallen.”

Through the Force, Anakin felt something inside Obi-Wan churning, cold and dark. He reached up and curled their hands together.

“But you were saving those kids from a landslide. You got -- really hurt saving their lives. It was really brave. And they only got out because of you. Everyone’s saying you were a hero and. They’re right.”

Obi-Wan turned his face to the side. He breathed out almost like it hurt. The Force prickled between them, a dark, eerie current. It made Anakin feel -- almost scared, like he was on a boat drifting out across the dark sea with no idea where he headed.

“They weren’t there,” Obi-Wan said at last. “They don’t know.”

And then something strange happened. The dark crackling feeling looping between them. . . pulled loose. It retreated back into Obi-Wan and disappeared. It was like a wall rose between them, blocking Anakin off. He blinked, a sudden empty space inside him.

The lift doors dinged open. Obi-Wan stepped inside the lift, tugging Anakin’s hand to get him inside, too.

“It’s over now. Nothing good will come of dwelling on it. A Jedi must accept his failures and move forward.”

“. . .yeah,” Anakin said doubtfully.

That unfamiliar empty feeling sat between them, like Obi-Wan was on the other side of a wall.

That wasn’t right, and Anakin didn’t like it at all. Since the beginning, he and Obi-Wan had been connected. It was one of the first things he remembered.

 _I’ll make it better,_ he thought, watching Obi-Wan from the corner of his eye as the lift flashed up the floors. _I’ll fix it_.

* * *

While Obi-Wan went to wash his face, Anakin set up the caf-machine and munched on his favorite cake, which had lurid pink icing (as Obi-Wan called it). He'd show Obi-Wan the droid. He'd been in the infirmary when Anakin had started it and didn't know anything about it yet. 

Obi-Wan came back wearing a different robe entirely, his face scrubbed clean. He brought his raktajino over to the couch and sat quietly watching Anakin build a circuit board.

“It’s going to be a protocol droid,” he explained.

“A bit unusual for a robotics project.” Obi-Wan’s smile reminded Anakin of winter, pale and faraway. “Ambitious. Don’t most students reprogram maintenance droids?”

“Boring. I’m gonna give it to Mom when I’m done. I’m programming it with six million languages.”

Obi-Wan coughed a bit on his raktajino. “Your mother will have use for that, will she?” But he was still smiling when he said it, even a little bigger.

“You never know,” Anakin said loftily. “He can help Satine, too.”

“A worthy gift.”

But then his attention unspooled and he stared out the window. A line of speeders flickered endlessly by, but he seemed to be looking at something farther away.

Anakin fiddled with his circuit board. The thing was, you couldn’t come at Obi-Wan head-on. He was a master of defense. You had to be sneaky. And with that wall between them, Anakin couldn’t rely on the Force for insight.

When had Obi-Wan had time to build that wall, anyway? In the past when he’d tried to block his emotions off from Anakin, something had always leaked in. It was like putting up your hand to shield your eyes from the sun. Light still pushed through your fingers.

But that wall was as solid as the Temple. He’d been _working_ on it.

Which, Anakin realized, narrowing his eyes, meant he had something to hide.

Ugh. Why had Master Soka needed to leave today. This would be a lot easier with her help.

“Wish Master Soka was here,” he said, testing. He focused on his circuits so Obi-Wan wouldn’t find himself being stared at and get all prickly.

“She’s only been gone for an hour,” Obi-Wan said. His attention, at least, drifted back to Anakin’s project. He still didn’t seem all there, though, drinking his caf like he didn’t even taste it. He should have gone “mmm” sometimes and half closed his eyes others, but he just stared at the circuit board.

“Yeah, well. That’s how much I miss her.”

“Master will be well. Her relief mission is only a small one. Not like.” He pressed his lips together, and his fingers curled into a fist.

“Like Reishi Prime?” Anakin asked slowly, watching him as he carefully removed a screw from the plate.

Obi-Wan drew in a breath, flexed his fingers. “Yes. And Master Plo is with her as well. They’ll distribute the supplies and. . . come home.”

Then he stood. “I need more. . .yes,” he said, and went into the kitchen. He clinked around out of sight for a lot longer than it would take just to run a caf machine. Then the clinking tapered off and there was only silence.

Anakin abandoned his tools and padded to the door to the kitchen. He used all his sneaking skills to move without sound, and peered around the door.

Obi-Wan stood with his head bent and his hand pressed over his eyes. It made Anakin feel. . . small. Helpless.

He hated it.

Obi-Wan looked up when Anakin stepped into the kitchen. He cleared his throat, turned to rattle around in a cabinet. Anakin had seen his eyes were red.

He went and pushed his forehead against Obi-Wan’s lower back. Obi-Wan stilled, then turned and pressed his hand against the back of Anakin’s neck.

“It’ll be all right, Anakin,” he said quietly. “I’ll be all right.”

But the wall was high and hard between them, and Anakin didn’t believe him.

He’d said he’d make it better, but just then. . . he realized he didn’t know how.

* * *

He was going to sleep in Master Soka’s room, to give Obi-Wan some space. He slept so lightly and Anakin knew he rolled around like an energetic pentapus. But Obi-Wan said, “Where are you going?” from inside his bedroom when Anakin walked past the door, and then smiled when Anakin poked his head around the frame.

So Anakin wrapped himself up in blankets like a stuffed pancake. When the alarm pinged in the morning, he opened groggy eyes to find Obi-Wan breathing lightly in his sleep, curled around him.

Obi-Wan insisted he wasn’t hungry, so Anakin had to be sneaky again. He ordered a big bowl of wheat gruel, which he personally hated, and left half of it unfinished. When Obi-Wan polished off the rest, Anakin felt pretty pleased with himself.

“This is your last chance, young one,” said Obi-Wan as he gathered up his robe. “You can be trapped in the stuffy archives with endless lists or escape to your age-mates -- astro-navigation, saber practice, flight class. . .”

This was a low-down dirty trick, but Anakin should’ve expected it from someone as crafty as Obi-Wan, who had, after all, taught him much of what he knew about being devious.

“Flight class,” he said, narrowing his eyes, “isn’t for another three days. I’m top, anyway,” he added. “I’m _going_ to the archives with you.”

“As loath as I am to support anything Quinlan Vos says,” said Obi-Wan, “it’s your funeral.”

Anakin just grabbed his hand and marched them out the door.

* * *

The archives were really, really boring.

Obi-Wan had been right about the endless lists. Somebody was in love with lists. There was also a whole bunch of crates. These were more interesting in theory, but since they were only there for sorting, they quickly became an extra source of boredom.

Anakin’s job was to pull things out of the crates and show them to Obi-Wan, who’d check them off on, you guessed it, a list. Then they’d go back into the crate to be studied later. It seemed really pointless to Anakin.

“I mean, they already _made_ the list, so they know it’s in here.” Currently he was holding a really ugly bronze-ish vase that looked like it was covered in hundreds of glaring eyes.

“It’s called inventory,” said Obi-Wan absently, tapping at his datapad. “Master Nu needs to have a record that she received everything the University says they sent her. All right, put that one back, grab the next one.”

“So far everything’s there that they said.” Anakin stuffed the vase back in its packing. “Can’t droids do this?”

“These artifacts are delicate,” said Obi-Wan pointedly. “So please stop mishandling them.”

“I bet that thing wouldn’t break if Quin jumped up and down on it. Hey, wanna ask him up here to try?”

“There’s a fantastic idea,” said Obi-Wan with diamond-grade sarcasm. Anakin grinned. “If I ever want Master Nu to cut my throat, I’ll keep it in mind. The next item should be. . . a box.”

“We’ve got _plenty_ of those,” said Anakin, looking around at the way-too-many crates. Together, they spelled ‘Eternal Boredom.’

“A _small_ box,” said Obi-Wan. “Fits in the palm of your hand. Black in color, covered in maybe-runes.”

“What are maybe-runes?” Anakin asked, learning over the crate to dig at the next cubby-hole and peel the packing apart.

“I assume they’re markings the scholars couldn’t read.”

Obi-Wan’s list was right: the box was small and black and covered in squiggly symbols.

“Here it is.” Anakin turned it over in his hands. “Weird, it. . . feels hollow, but there’s no hinge or opening or anything.” He shook it, but nothing rattled inside. Instead, he heard something like. . . “Hey, I think it’s -- humming?”

“Humming? There’s nothing in the notes about that.”

“Maybe only Jedi can hear it?” Anakin asked. When it started humming louder, he almost dropped it. “Whoa.”

Obi-Wan frowned. “Anakin?”

“Can -- can’t you hear it?” Anakin held it out. “It’s like. . . a tuning fork or something.”

“No. Bring it over here.” Obi-Wan reached forward. The humming swelled. Anakin winced, raising his free hand to block his ear.

Then Obi-Wan’s fingers touched the box, and the room disappeared around Anakin in a blinding flash.


	2. A Fiery Forge

Oh, Anakin was in trouble.

Arguably, Obi-Wan was in worse trouble, but Anakin knew who was going to _get_ _in_ trouble.

“Stop wriggling!” he hissed. “It -- tickles.”

He clutched his robe around the little squirming bundle as he scuttled down the Temple corridor. The wriggling did not stop. He clapped a hand against the neck of his robes, but it was too late: a furry orange head popped out and an indignant mew split the quiet temple air.

A couple of older padawans, bent over stacks of datapads, looked around for the noise. Glad for once that he was tiny, Anakin jumped behind a bronzium statute of Ancient Grand Master Flurg and cupped a hand over Obi-Wan’s muzzle.

Because that was the trouble they were in: Anakin had turned Obi-Wan into a cat.

* * *

Anakin let himself into Obi-Wan’s quarters, peering around in case someone like Master Yoda or Windu had gotten in there, but all he saw was the bits of his protocol droid lying around everywhere. He didn’t think it was _likely_ that Master Windu would be sitting amongst droid circuits in the dark, but he hadn’t expected Obi-Wan to turn into a cat, either.

When Anakin had said he’d fix Obi-Wan’s problems, he hadn’t meant “by giving him four legs and a tail.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said to the cat, who was glaring at him from the back of the couch. “It’s not like those scholars left a note on their stupid inventory! What’s the _point_ of an ancient Force-thingy that turns somebody into a -- what kind of cat are you, anyway? You’re not a Loth-cat.”

Obi-Wan lashed his tail. He was very orange and quite fluffy, with white patches on his face and throat, a long puffy tail, and little white paws. As a matter of fact, he was adorable. Anakin _might_ tell him, if he decided he wasn’t in enough trouble.

Anakin pulled the Force-box-thingy out of his pocket, pushed aside the droid arm he’d been building last night, and set it on the low table. Taking it had probably been a worse idea, but when Obi-Wan’s wriggling robes had parted to reveal a confused furry face and pointy ears, Anakin had -- panicked. He’d stuffed the cat into his tunic, grabbed Obi-Wan’s robes and the Force-thingy, and bolted.

He climbed onto the couch and frowned at the Force-thingy. Obi-Wan jumped down from his perch -- and landed on his face as his legs folded under him. Without meaning to, Anakin laughed, then clapped his hands over his mouth as Obi-Wan rolled over to give him a very deadly glare.

“Sorry,” Anakin said sincerely, “accident.” He went to pick Obi-Wan up and got swiped at. Those claws were _sharp_. “Okay, _fine_ , I’ll let you do it yourself, jeez.”

Obi-Wan seemed to be having trouble navigating the soft cushions, or maybe it was needing to control four legs instead of two. Once he’d wobbled to the edge of the couch, he turned his head toward Anakin, fixing him with a flat stare of disapproval.

“Oh, _now_ you want help,” Anakin muttered, but he was glad Obi-Wan hadn’t tried to jump it. Gingerly he picked the cat up round the middle and set him down on the table.

Obi-Wan sniffed around the box. Anakin wondered if all of this would make a good report for Master Sinube’s class, or if he’d fail for somehow turning the Order’s most promising senior padawan into a cat.

“I didn’t _mean_ to do it,” he said, picking at a hole he’d burnt in the knee of his trousers with a misplaced training saber.

Obi-Wan made a noise like _mrrrp_. Anakin sneaked a look at him through his shaggy fringe. Obi-Wan was sitting on his haunches, his tail curled around his front paws, watching him with an unreadable cat-look. Well, at least he’d stopped glaring. And yowling.

“If Master Soka was on-planet, she’d know what to do.”

Obi-Wan mrrp’d again, then padded to the edge of the table and perched, all four paws close together, eying the couch as if thinking _It doesn’t look that far_. Heart thumping, Anakin scooped him up before he could jump.

“Well, pick something smaller to practice jumping off!” he said when Obi-Wan bleated. “I know cats always land on their feet, but you aren’t _really_ a cat.”

Obi-Wan turned his back and curled up in a ball on all four paws, tucking his tail tight around him. Anakin took that for the cat-version of a huff.

He looked back to the Force-thingy, wishing that Ahsoka was there, or that he was more than eight years old, or that Obi-Wan could _talk_ and give him some ideas.

“Now what do we do?” he groaned.

* * *

It wasn’t until twilight had melted into night that Ahsoka realized two things: first, that she was starving, and second, that something was niggling at her -- something in the Force.

“What is it?” Master Plo asked. His voice, always slow and deep, didn’t sound any more or less solicitous than usual, but she could sense the light touch of his concern.

“I’m. . . not sure.” She tested the feeling, as if groping for a light switch in a dark room. It felt. . . external. Not like a warning, more like a -- communication.

It was unusual for her to get that strong a sense outside of meditation. That meant it probably wasn’t her, but --

“I think it’s Obi-Wan or Anakin.”

Master Plo’s forehead ridges shifted with surprise. “Your connection to your padawan always demonstrates surprising strength, but Skywalker, as well?”

She picked up her cup to cover her sudden consternation. Master Plo didn’t know about the doubled-up master-padawan bond and wouldn’t ever, if she had her way.

“Anakin’s pretty hard to ignore,” she said, which was certainly the truth. Swallowing a bubbling mouthful of spring wine -- which she was sure the clan headsman hadn’t really been able to spare, but which gratitude demanded they accept -- she added, “I’d better contact Coruscant, see what the problem is. Cover for me?”

“Of course.”

Out in the darkness, the sky lit by the path of a thousand stars, she wriggled her personal commlink out of her pocket and flicked it on. At this distance, on a personal link, it was voice-only. The line buzzed as someone on the other end connected with a clatter. She heard Anakin’s high voice swearing in Mandalorian, then gasping, _“Master Soka!”_

 _Anakin, then. But why isn’t Obi-Wan picking up?_ Her fingers tightened on the comm. “Ani? What’s the matter?”

 _“I. . .”_ She hadn’t actually known what hand-wringing sounded like before now. _“I didn’t_ mean _to,”_ he wailed.

The Force fluttered at her like leaves disturbed in the wind. “Back up, Ani, and just tell me what happened. Where’s Obi-Wan?”

_“I -- I turned him into a cat!”_

She listened to the crystalline hooting of the night-birds in the darkness for a few seconds.

“You . . . what?”

On the other end of the comm came a distinct noise, a drawn-out _niayooow_. She put her free hand over her mouth, realizing suddenly that she was trying not to burst out laughing.

“ _Okay, well, so, you know about that shipment of artifacts the University of Coruscant guys found in their dig on Takodana, right, well, Obi-Wan was helping inventory them, see, and Master Sinube was letting me help, but when we got to this little box-thingy with symbols all over it, it was making a funny noise, so I handed it to Obi-Wan and then there was a flash and he got turned into a cat!”_

He said it in one huge breath. She imagined him turning red, his hair standing up as he tugged at it with his fingers. When Anakin had been her master, he’d thrummed with energy, which had led to things like jumping out of plummeting ships, slashing a battalion of droids to scrap, and plowing star destroyers into Separatist blockades. As a child, Anakin was no less a live wire, especially in the grips of some strong emotion.

“What. . . kind of cat?” she said inanely, before telling herself that it hardly mattered.

“ _I dunno -- not a Loth-cat. He’s smaller and fluffier._ _He’s pretty mad at me. It was an accident!”_

She wasn’t sure if that defense was directed at her, at Obi-Wan, or at anyone who would listen.

“I know it was,” she said. And the way the Force was plucking at her. . . “Have you gone to anyone for help?”

 _“. . . No, Master,”_ he mumbled.

“Then that’s what you need to do first,” she said, firm but kind. “I’m going to be here for a while longer, and I think Obi-Wan would prefer not to have four legs and a tail for that long.”

 _“He definitely agrees,”_ Anakin said; she heard the feline bleat in the background.

Oh, it was unfair. She wanted to be there with them for a number of reasons; ignobly, one of them was to pick Obi-Wan up, just to _see_.

If Master Plo had been Temple-side, she’d have sent Anakin to him. Quinlan Vos would help them, but he’d also think it was a riot and be almost more trouble than he was worth, she thought, not without fondness. Anyone in the Temple would be able to help, but she’d prefer to put Anakin in the hands of one of Obi-Wan’s friends, who adored him.

“Is Padawan Luminara on-planet?”

_“Dunno. I can find out.”_

“Good. Go and look for her. If you can’t find her, go and see Dr. Niima in the Healers’ Ward. It’ll be okay, Ani. Force artifacts can be. . . unpredictable.”

 _That’s why I’m here, after all_.

She felt a sudden chill at the momentary thought of Anakin picking up something like _she_ had, and then banished it. It hadn’t happened. . . but maybe he should be kept away from the vaults in future. No one must have thought it was dangerous, but Anakin could be even more unpredictable than a Force artifact.

Of course, nobody knew that the way she did.

“ _Right. I mean, yes, Master.”_ He sounded steadier after being given a direct task.

“Go on, then,” she said, letting her voice warm to communicate her smile. “Keep in touch, and I’ll talk to you soon.”

“ _Right, Master._ ” She imagined him clutching the commlink the way he’d hugged her round the waist yesterday, the way he always did when she left. _“May the Force be with you.”_

“And with you, Ani -- and Obi-Wan.”

She heard the mew closer, as if Anakin had brought the commlink down to her padawan. Then the connection cut, leaving her with the soft beeps of a disconnected line.

She put a hand over her face and laughed helplessly in spite of everything.

“I leave them alone for _a day_. . .”

* * *

Anakin skulked through the cool white light of the service corridors, Obi-Wan padding along in front of him. Anakin had wanted Obi-Wan to travel in a satchel, but he’d refused.

“You’re gonna get us in trouble,” Anakin hissed. “You know animals aren’t allowed!”

Obi-Wan just mrrrrrl’d at him and trotted ahead, the tip of his bushy tail swaying.

So they were taking the routes usually reserved for droids. There was no _rule_ against being back there, but there’d be questions if they were found. Especially since one of them was a cat.

Anakin punched the button to raise the service door, peeking around the edge to scan the open corridor. Long shafts of orange light stretched down the empty hall. Good.

Obi-Wan padded along the wall, his fur shining and dimming as he passed through beams of light and pits of shadow, while Anakin scurried down to Luminara’s door. After prodding the chime, he danced from foot to foot, waiting to see if she was inside.

But when the door swished open, it wasn’t Luminara, it was --

“Quin!”

“Aniii.” Quinlan scooped him up like -- well, like he was cat-sized -- and slung him over his shoulder. Anakin yelled, stomach swooping, and kicked his feet as Quinlan knuckled his skull. “Bored of the archives already, ey? Come looking for me to declare your undying padawan-hood for me? I _knew_ you couldn’t resist.”

“That’s a dirty lie and you know it! What’ve you done with Lumi, sleemo?”

“You’ll soon find out -- after the same happens to _you_.”

Quinlan wasn’t ticklish, Anakin had found out years ago, to his dismay, because Quin was a master tickler. Anakin used every trick he knew to get loose, while Quin launched an attack that had him hollering at the top of his lungs.

“I will never understand the appeal you two see in this way of saying hello,” said a soft voice. A green hand landed on Quin’s shoulder, and Anakin looked up through streaming eyes to see Luminara’s face hanging upside down beside him.

“That’s because you have too much dignity and we don’t have any,” Quinlan said, swinging Anakin upright to perch on his shoulder. Anakin enjoyed for a moment being so far off the ground.

“Hi, Lumi,” he said, mopping at his eyes.

“Ani.” Luminara rested a hand on his elbow. “How are you?”

“I’m. . . kind of in trouble,” he admitted. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something small and orange prowling under the low table.

“What’s this?” Quin asked, noticing it too. He knelt down, still carrying Anakin on his shoulder; Anakin wrapped the Force around himself for balance. Luminara bent down as well, peering into the shadows under the table.

“That’s the trouble I’m in,” Anakin said heavily. “That’s Obi-Wan.”

* * *

“Do stop laughing, Quinlan,” said Luminara severely. “It’s not remotely productive.”

Anakin wondered if that’s what he looked like after the tickle attack, his face red and covered in tears. Quin was clutching his stomach, while Obi-Wan sat on the edge of the table with his pointed ears laid back and his blue eyes glaring feline murder.

“H-he’s so cute and fluffy,” Quin wheezed.

Luminara ignored him, focusing instead on the small stone box sitting on her table. “And this was the culprit.”

“It was making noise,” Anakin said. “A high humming noise, only he couldn’t hear it. But when he touched it, he just. . . disappeared and there was an orange cat struggling out of his robes.”

Quin went off again. Anakin kicked him in the leg, for all the good it did; Quin was built like a wroshyr tree. But it at least got him to try and put a lid on it.

“Sorry, kiddo.” He wiped tears out of the corner of his eyes.

“Force artifacts can be dangerous,” Luminara said to him, in a tone like a thwack on the ear. “You shouldn’t take this so lightly. Obi-Wan shouldn’t have touched it if it was acting strangely, either.”

“But I touched it and I was fine,” Anakin said defensively. “I’ve held it a bunch of times. And those University jerks didn’t say anything about it either--”

“You’re right, kid,” Quin said, rubbing his hair. “There was no reason to think it wasn’t safe. We don’t know that it’s that serious now, either. So he’s a cat. He seems okay otherwise, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah. . .” Anakin twisted the hem of his tunic. “But I mean, we don’t know how to turn him back. That seems pretty serious.”

“Nothing’s certain yet, kiddo,” Quin said. “We’ll get that list of artifacts he was working on and see what it can tell us, ‘ey? If we can find out what it is, we can figure out what happened.”

“Right.” Anakin pleated the hem of his tunic, wishing he could grab his worry and wring it out. He suddenly wanted to pick up Obi-Wan and hold him close.

Obi-Wan had prowled to the edge of the table; now he bunched his legs and jumped. He landed with a soundless bump next to Anakin, then stepped onto his lap. Surprised, Anakin raised his hands out of the way, stealing a look at Quin and Luminara.

They traded a glance he couldn’t interpret. Unlike Obi-Wan, who was always clear to him, Quin and Luminara were already like doors closed tight. Their faces gave nothing away, either.

“Right,” Quin said, smacking his own thighs, “then let’s get going. Up and at ‘em, Ani.”

“What, me too?”

“Your input will be most valuable,” said Luminara, smoothing out her black skirts as she stood. “Bring Obi-Wan, too.”

Anakin didn’t object, exactly, but -- “We’re not supposed to have animals. . .”

“We’ll just tell ‘em we’re working on something,” Quin said breezily. “We don’t have to tell them _what_.”

Anakin looked at Obi-Wan, waiting for him to jump down, but he only blinked slowly and settled himself more firmly into Anakin’s lap. Unsure, he tucked his arms around the cat and stood, scooping him against his chest. Obi-Wan flicked his tail, seeming content.

“All right,” Quin said, his voice sounding only a bit strangled, while Luminara looked away with a suspicious curve to her mouth. “To the archives.”

* * *

One thing Obi-Wan -- when he was his normal human shape, not the size of a bread loaf -- had been trying to impress on Anakin was the concept of _discretion_. Anakin hadn’t got the hang of it yet, wasn’t even entirely sure what it was, but it seemed to have something to do with knowing when to run and hide.

Running and hiding was not something Anakin was usually keen on, but when he, Luminara, and Quin got within sight of the archives and found it overrun with Jedi Masters, he thought maybe he should put it into practice.

Before he could decide, Quin reached down and ruffled his hair. “C’mon, squirt. Looks like they’re here to help.”

Gloomily, Anakin allowed himself to be steered into the little archive room that had been set aside for the cataloguing. It was now pretty crowded, with Master Nu, Yoda and Mace Windu in it. Running and hiding looked better than ever.

Especially when they all turned and fixed him with a range of knowing looks. There seemed to be a general air of Of-Course-It’s-Skywalker. Anakin wondered if Obi-Wan’s discretion lessons would approve of hiding behind Quin’s legs.

“Masters,” said Luminara, bowing. Quin followed her example, so Anakin did too. Obi-Wan just gave them an inscrutable cat look. For the first time, Anakin wished the Force-thingy had turned _him_ into the cat.

“Then you it was, young Skywalker,” said Master Yoda. He didn’t sound angry, but then he never did.

“Master?” Quin asked casually, shifting a little so that he bumped Anakin’s shoulder with his thigh. Anakin stuck to him, wishing it wasn’t too babyish to grab his hand.

“A disturbance in the Force, we felt.” Yoda looked curiously at the cat in Anakin’s arms. “Tracked it here, we did.”

“I came to see how you and Padawan Kenobi were getting on,” said Master Nu, “only you’d gone and left everything in chaos. Most unlike either of you -- and I couldn’t raise Padawan Kenobi on the comms.”

(Probably because Anakin had stuffed Obi-Wan’s robes, with his alarmingly persistent comm, under the sofa so he wouldn’t have to answer it.)

“Where _is_ Padawan Kenobi?” asked Master Windu.

“He’s the cat,” Anakin said miserably.

Their shock became the loudest sound in the room. It sort of sucked all the other sound away.

“The cat. . .” said Master Windu slowly “. . . is Obi-Wan.”

Anakin hung his head.

Luminara put a light hand on his shoulder, cool and reassuring, and repeated what he’d told her earlier.

“Show them the box, Anakin,” she said gently.

Shifting Obi-Wan, who gave a _mrrr_ of discontent, he pulled the Force-thingy out of his satchel. The Masters drew nearer, their faces a mixture of hard-to-read and stern as they stared down at it.

“Know it, do any of you?” said Master Yoda, his eyes narrowed at the black thing in Anakin’s hand. None of them seemed eager to touch it.

There was a chorus of “No, Master”s.

“You said Padawan Kenobi turned into a cat when you handed it to him,” said Master Windu.

“Yes, Master. Just -- a flash, then he was a cat.”

“Did the flash come from the box?”

“I. . .” Anakin frowned. “I dunno, Master. It was bright, so I shut my eyes. There was just. . . light.”

“Remember the moment,” said Master Yoda. “Close your eyes. In your mind, hold it.”

“Can I put this thing down first?” Anakin asked.

He got a sense that Quin and Luminara were trying not to laugh.

“Of course, my dear,” said Master Nu, moving aside so that he could place it on the table where he and Obi-Wan had been working. Nobody else seemed to want to touch it. Considering that it had turned Obi-Wan into a cat, Anakin supposed they had the right idea.

Obi-Wan squirmed in his arms, so Anakin let him jump up onto the table. He prowled across it, sniffing the random artifacts that Master Nu had been clearing away. Most of the grown-ups watched him the way they did when human-shaped-Obi-Wan was doing something impressive in the training salle.

“The memory, young Skywalker,” said Master Yoda.

Anakin shut his eyes, picturing the room that morning with just him and Obi-Wan in it. . . _when Obi-Wan’s fingers closed around the box, all the symbols lit up, a white so bright Anakin squeezed his eyes shut. It felt like it lit up the inside of his brain, and his ears beat with a soundless, pressurizing_ whump _. And when he dared to open his eyes again. . ._

“It was the box,” he said, opening his eyes now. He repeated to all of them what he’d remembered.

“Master Nu, your help, will we need.” Master Yoda rested the tip of his gimer stick against the top of the table. Obi-Wan jumped down onto Yoda’s shoulders, nuzzling his ear. Anakin thought he saw the old master smile.

“What this artifact is, we must learn,” said Master Yoda, stroking a claw under Obi-Wan’s chin. “And how to undo it, as soon as we can.”

“Yes, Master,” said Anakin.

He’d read every datapad in the library if it turned Obi-Wan back to himself.

* * *

Anakin opened his eyes to a bunch of fur.

“Obi-Waaan,” he groaned, spitting out Obi-Wan’s tail.

The cat gave a _mrrr_ of discontent as Anakin shifted him off his face and onto the pillow.

He blinked at the soft-lit room around him, which was most definitely not the Council room, where he must’ve fallen asleep. It was also lacking the pile of socks necessary to be Obi-Wan’s room.

On the other side of the closed door drifted a soft presence, like light shining through a waterfall.

“Luminara?” he mumbled sleepily, even though she couldn’t hear him.

The door swished open, almost as if she had. Anakin could feel behind his eyes how early it was, but the black folds of her dress were impeccable.

“Good morning, Anakin. There’s breakfast, once you’ve dressed and freshened up. Obi-Wan,” she added with a slight smile when he mewed. From Luminara, that gentle curve to one side of her mouth was as good as one of Quin’s laughs.

But Anakin caught something else from her, almost like a shadow, as she disappeared around the edge of the door.

Uneasy, he picked up Obi-Wan, who nuzzled his chin, and headed for the fresher.

“What do you think?” he asked the cat, who watched from the rim of the sink as Anakin brushed his teeth. “I fell asleep last night when they were still talking. Did you hear anything?”

Obi-Wan just blinked placidly at him. Anakin sighed.

“Yeah, like you could tell me anyway,” he said, hanging up his toothbrush. When he put his arms out, the cat jumped into them. He was warm, and his heart beat quickly against Anakin’s hands. He didn’t seem nervous; Anakin suspected that cats’ hearts just beat faster.

He and Obi-Wan joined Quin at Luminara’s low table, where a plate was waiting for him heaped with food: plankton loaf, shredded kelp, and sea berries. He dragged it toward himself and dug in.

“What did Master Yoda say after I fell asleep?”

“That he wants to see you as soon as you wake up,” said Luminara.

Anakin yelped, making Obi-Wan flatten his ears. “Why didn’t you -- I’ll go right now!”

“Anakin, please do sit down,” said Luminara, as Quin grabbed him by the ankle before he could hie for the door. “You need to have something in you before you go; otherwise you won’t be at your peak to help Obi-Wan.”

“So eat up, sprout,” said Quin, plonking him back down on his cushion. “And don’t forget to clean your plate, if you don’t want to be a runt your whole life.”

Anakin used the Force to flick a sea-berry at him while shoveling plankton loaf in his mouth as fast as it could go.

“Wasting food,” said Quin as the berry bounced harmlessly off his forehead. “No wonder you’re still a sprog.”

“What I wonder,” said Luminara, “is what _you_ did with your manners. I know you were raised with them.”

“Had to sell them on the black market for an undercover assignment,” said Quin. “Hey, kid, slow down before you choke.”

“I’m done,” Anakin gasped, his eyes streaming as he gulped the last bite of plankton loaf, which had gotten a bit lost down the wrong pipe. “Let’s go see Master Yoda.”

“Wish I had the energy of the young,” he heard Quin say as he dashed for the door.

* * *

“Young Skywalker,” said Master Yoda, peering at him the way he always did, like nothing could bother him. He leaned on his little gimer stick, blinking placidly. “So soon I did not expect to see you. Sleeping in you are fond of, yes?”

“It’s not my fault morning is so early in the day, Master,” said Anakin.

Obi-Wan wriggled in his arms, mewing in a way that Anakin figured meant _let me down so I can sniff things._

“Return to your duties, padawans,” said Master Yoda to Quin and Lumi, who hovered in the open door. “Young Skywalker I will look after.”

Anakin didn’t want them to go, but he wouldn’t be a baby and admit he wanted them to stay.

“Let us know how it goes, grasshopper,” said Quin, tweaking his ear.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Anakin, batting his hand away. But he felt better.

He perched on the meditation cushion across from Yoda’s. Obi-Wan was prowling round the room, putting his nose on things that didn’t look particularly sniffable to Anakin, like the floor.

“Luminara said you wanted to see me, Master? Did you find anything out?”

“Patience, young one,” said Yoda.

Anakin heard that a lot. People told him to be patient but didn’t tell him how you were supposed to do it.

“The box, there is.” Master Yoda pointed at the larger-than-the-box-that-turned-you-into-a-cat that was sitting on a table against the wall. “Bring it out, if you please.”

Anakin had to use the Force to open Yoda’s box, which had no handles or hinges, just like the little black box that had caused all this trouble. A moment later, the trouble-making-box was in his hands again, as dull and innocent-looking as usual. He wasn’t fooled.

“The box’s origins and purposes, shrouded in mystery are,” said Yoda as Anakin climbed back up on his cushion. “Meditate upon it you will.”

“Meditate?” Anakin knew he should like meditation more than he did, but his sessions tended to end in unscheduled naptime.

“Through the Force the box you will explore. To you -- or perhaps to Obi-Wan -- it has reacted. Contact, you may establish.”

At least this meant he wouldn’t be expected to read a lot of boring books and lists to figure out how to change Obi-Wan back.

“Now, concentrate,” said Yoda. “With you, I will be.”

Anakin closed his eyes and tried to pay attention to his breathing. He felt Obi-Wan jump up onto the cushion next to him, the light pressure of his paws.

“Concentrate, young one,” said Yoda. “Obi-Wan, distraction you will not cause. Meditate, must your young friend.”

Obi-Wan was climbing into Anakin’s lap and sniffing all around the box. That wasn’t like him -- it was like he was ignoring Master Yoda. Anakin shot a worried look at Master Yoda. The old master’s face as he watched Obi-Wan curl around the box was too hard to read.

Obi-Wan blinked slowly up at Anakin, closing his eyes. He looked content, tucked up with his head resting against Anakin’s knee.

 _Okay, then,_ Anakin thought.

He tried again.

He imagined himself floating in darkness, like his body was disconnected from the world. The only sound was his breathing. Then he reached out with his feelings -- imagined throwing open a window -- and the Force flared with blinding points of light. There was Master Yoda, bright but opaque, like light shining behind frosted glass.

But. . . where was Obi-Wan?

For a moment Anakin felt him -- and then only absence. He almost opened his eyes in shock. He imagined turning in place in that darkness behind his eyes, trying to find Obi-Wan’s glittering sunlight-on-the-waves signature, but it was _gone_.

 _I_ can’t _open my eyes_. Panicked, he pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes -- only he didn’t. His body sat serenely still. Only in his mind did he move.

 _What’s going ON?_ he shouted into the darkness.

Then he saw it -- the box. Only it wasn’t palm-sized; it was towering, ten times as tall as he was, and the symbols weren’t dark but glowing all over its walls like banked coals.

And it was whispering.

He didn’t know what the whispers said. They flowed past his ears like running water. Some part of him yearned to make them out, but another part, the part that said _let’s practice running away,_ wanted to plug his ears and take off as fast as his feet could go. A knot of something much, much worse than fear of getting yelled at was writhing in his chest, not like Obi-Wan struggling to get out of his robes but like a snake, cold and hard.

 _To the Mandalorian fire-pits with this_. _Master Yoda!_ he shouted as loud as he could. _Master Yoda, help!_

Only silence, loud and ancient and vast, threaded with that flowing whisper. Master Yoda’s light was gone.

Anakin swallowed. His throat felt dry as a fistful of sand.

 _He said he’s right there. If I can’t wake up, he’ll know_. . .

He glared at the box. It rose above him, glowing like hundreds of narrow, twisting eyes.

 _Then I guess since I’m here,_ he thought doggedly, _I’ll just -- figure out what this thing did to Obi-Wan_.

That meant getting closer to the box, which seemed to be a flawed plan. But he balked at the idea of just sitting there waiting for Master Yoda to figure out he was stuck in some nightmare plane with a giant version of the cat-box, with that whisper the only thing to listen to. Already it was kinda driving him nuts.

So he squared his shoulders and clenched his fists, and stuck his foot out to take a step forward --

And something burning bright flared up in front of him.

He yelled and jumped back, throwing his arms up. _Get ‘em in the fork,_ Quin liked to say, only Anakin wasn’t sure that a burning knot of fire _had_ a fork. It was the height of a man, though, and if he squinted -- which made his eyes run, because he was staring directly into a ball of fire -- at its center rippled a sort of dark man-shape, like something made of the shadows that sprang out of the darkness when you lit a fire; like ash left over when the flames burned down.

For a moment, Anakin thought he knew him. His heart beat in his chest like a dragon falling and trying to fly.

 _“Was it you?”_ he said angrily, heart thrumming. “ _Did_ you _turn Obi-Wan into a cat?”_

 _“Wasn’t me,”_ said the man-shaped fireball, or the burning man. “ _I wouldn’t have made him so. . . fluffy.”_

 _“He’s cute like that,”_ Anakin said, before reflecting that this wasn’t the point. “ _Who’re you? What do you want?”_

_“To keep you away from that thing. I think you know why. Aren’t your instincts telling you it’s dangerous?”_

Anakin hesitated, because they definitely were. They were even a bit pleased that there was a ball of fire standing between him and the box.

He scowled. “ _I have to help Obi-Wan. He can’t stay a cat!”_

 _“You aren’t going to find the answers in that thing,”_ said the burning man.

This sounded uncomfortably like the truth. Anakin knew when people were lying, even, apparently, if they were great balls of fire.

Still, he wasn’t going to just agree.

 _“How do_ you _know?”_ he demanded.

 _“The mysteries of the Force are a little less mysterious to me these days_ ,” said the burning man, sort of smug, like he was telling himself a private joke. “ _That thing is ancient. It predates the Jedi Order.”_

Anakin squinted past the black edges of the burning man’s halo, to the box towering on the plane. _“Is it Dark?”_

 _“It’s Dark,”_ said the burning man, “ _and Light, and everything in between. It shows you what lies at the heart.”_

 _“The heart of what?”_ Anakin asked, confused.

 _“Of anything -- everything_.”

 _“That’s not confusing at all,”_ Anakin grumbled.

 _“Of course it is.”_ The burning man’s voice held a smile. Anakin didn’t know if it was a nice smile or not. “ _The Force is like that.”_

 _“That’s the truth,”_ Anakin said, frowning. “ _So. . . why can’t it help?”_

 _“It changed Obi-Wan, but it can’t change him back. Oh, and it wasn’t your fault._ He _did it to himself.”_

Anakin’s mouth fell open. “ _What?”_

_“Obi-Wan’s. . . got some things going on. He can tell you about them. When he’s got two feet instead of four paws.”_

_I_ knew _it._ Suspiciously, he said, “ _How do you know all this?_ ”

 _“Like I said.”_ The burning man had that private smile in his voice again. “ _The ways of the Force are more open to me, these days. And we’re all part of the Force, aren’t we?”_

 _“Lumin-nus beings are we,”_ Anakin said, remembering what Master Yoda said. “ _Not this crude matter.”_

 _“Right.”_ The voice sounded kind of proud of him. Weird. “ _Luminous.”_

 _“So. . . what do I do?”_ Anakin asked. “ _To turn Obi-Wan back.”_

 _“Obi-Wan changed himself,”_ said the burning man. “ _Only Obi-Wan can change himself back. But here’s the thing.”_

The burning shape rippled, like it was kneeling down in front of him. For a moment, Anakin had an impression of searing eyes boring into him. He stared straight into them, ignoring the throbbing stinging in his eyes, refusing to back down, even if the burning man was turning out to be, maybe, helpful.

For a moment, in that radiant blackness, he saw blue.

 _“We start to take on the mind of the body,”_ said the burning man. “ _Obi-Wan started out as a cat who was still completely Obi-Wan, but the longer he stays like that, the more he’ll actually_ become _a cat. And the harder it will be to turn back_.”

Anakin’s heart knotted in his chest. “ _But if he has to change_ himself _back--”_

 _“You’ve got it,”_ said the burning man. He rippled again, outward this time, part of him enveloping Anakin’s shoulder, almost like sunlight when he was happy, almost like fire leaping in the dark.

 _“You’ve got to reach him,”_ said the burning man. “ _You’re not alone, you got that? None of you are alone. You’ve got each other. There’s nowhere Obi-Wan can go that you can’t reach him.”_

Anakin wasn’t so sure. If Obi-Wan wasn’t Obi-Wan anymore. . .

 _“Everything is connected in the Force?”_ he asked, a bit skeptical, a lot worried.

 _“It’s not just the Force.”_ The hand on his shoulder squeezed gently, a flare of warmth against his skin. “ _It’s in you, too_.”

The burning man grew brighter and brighter, and Anakin had to shut his eyes and throw up his hands, as if they could block it out somehow. Around him the dark plane burned away to pure, searing light --

And he woke up on the floor with his head in Master Ahsoka’s lap.


	3. A Furnace Seal'd

Ahsoka punched the panel next to Master Yoda’s door, her heart turning over like a speeder engine. The Force roiled around her, and her thoughts pounded: _AnakinAnakinAnaki_ \--

She twisted past the door before it had finished swishing open.

Anakin hung in the air, halfway off the meditation cushion, his eyes rolled back so only the whites showed, his hair streaked with sweat. Master Yoda’s hand was outstretched toward him, his face twisted in concentration, eyes shut tight. The Force rang around them like a plucked string, and the air smelled of burning metal -- it was _hot_ , as if something were on fire --

She didn’t care what was going on; she couldn’t just stand there.

She braced her arms under Anakin, taking his weight. He was rigid, his skin fever-hot, his lips moving. She had been more frightened in her life, she was positive; she just couldn’t say when it could’ve been--

Then he and Master Yoda both gasped, as if taking in breath after too long without air, and collapsed.

She pulled Anakin against her and sank to the carpet. Master Yoda lay curled up, breathing like he’d run across the temple from the landing bay.

Anakin whimpered, turning his face into Ahsoka’s collar. She brushed her hand

through his hair as his eyes blinked open.

“Master Soka!” he gasped. Then, with more energy than someone that wrung out should possibly have, he threw his arms around her and burst into tears.

Startled, she tucked him closer. Over the top of his sweat-streaked hair she sought Yoda, who had slumped back on his cushion, looking, in the light that melted through the blinds, weary, and. . . worried.

She’d seen that expression a lot, a lifetime ago.

But it was fading as he pulled himself together. He folded his feet and rested his palms on his knees, watching them: not scolding Anakin or telling him to get it together. Just watching.

Ahsoka became aware of something mewing around her knees.

“Obi-Wan?” she said, strangled, as the fluffy orange cat pawed at Anakin’s thigh. But the cat didn’t acknowledge her at all, only mewed again at Anakin.

Hiccupping, he uncoiled an arm and scooped up the cat. It nuzzled his face, making a series of soft noises that sounded like _mrrr_ and _nyew_.

It was _very_ fluffy. Ahsoka blew a wayward piece of fur away from her lips.

“It’s okay, Ani,” she murmured, rubbing his back. “I’m here. . . I’m here.”

“‘M sorry,” he said thickly, his miserable voice vibrating through her montrals.

“You don’t have anything to apologize for, Ani.” She kissed his hair.

She made no move to shift him, only kept her hand drifting gently across his back. Sooner than he was probably ready for, he pulled back, wiping his sleeve across his messy face.

“Youngling.” Yoda shuffled up next to them holding a soft blue cloth. “Your robes for cleaning your face are not.”

“Right,” Anakin mumbled, groping for the cloth. His color was high and his eyes glassy. He didn’t look better, but he did look calmer.

He blew his nose in a blatting _honk_. The cat looked almost offended, flattening its ears.

“Obi-Wan?” she said tentatively, holding out her hand.

The cat turned its head and sniffed delicately, its damp nose touching her fingertips. Then it pushed its face into her hand, rubbing against her palm.

“Oh, padawan,” she whispered, “what happened to you?”

* * *

Ahsoka towed Anakin through the temple halls, his hand tucked into hers. The cat trotted ahead of them, tail swishing, giving the air of an honor guard.

She couldn’t really think of him as Obi-Wan. . . it was a lovely cat, its coat the color of Obi-Wan’s deep copper hair. . . but it wasn’t her padawan. He was -- off somewhere. On holiday.

A knot in her heart said otherwise, but. One thing at a time. First she had to take care of Anakin.

“Why don’t you go wash your face?” she said to him once the door to her quarters had swished shut behind them.

He nodded with an un-Ani-like obedience. It was almost as worrying as Obi-Wan being cat-shaped.

She was brewing a pot of thick chocolate when she became aware of a commotion: a scrabbling sound and a _wom, wom_. It took her a moment to realize it was the cat, pawing at the refresher door.

The door hissed open and Anakin popped out, bright-cheeked, his bangs damp and twisted back.

“I’m here, I’m here, jeez,” he said, but he looked a bit less miserable as he scooped up the cat.

“Chocolate?” he asked Ahsoka, sniffing the air. He carried the cat in his arms as he perched on the kitchen stool.

Ahsoka’s montrals thrummed faintly -- the cat was purring.

“Only the best for my future grand-padawan.” She used her fingers to comb his fringe into a shape that wasn’t sticking up like the spines on a gundark.

His smile was for a moment just like normal, a low-watt beam. . . but then it dimmed and he hunched over the cat.

“Not your grand-padawan if Obi-Wan doesn’t change back.”

She slid onto the other stool, leaning over the kitchen counter and touching his shoulder gently. “Tell me.”

What he told her made her glad his face was tucked into the cat’s fur, rendering him unable to see her expression. But with Ani, expressions were hardly all you needed to control. She pictured a waterfall, the thrumming of the falling water, the billowing spray, the churning currents, so he wouldn’t pick up her mounting dread.

_The burning man._

Her skin prickled all over.

 _Anakin,_ she thought. _Or -- Vader_. That amalgam of Vader-and-Anakin, the spirit that walked beside her in the Force, cruel and kind together.

He’d come to Anakin before.

Anakin didn’t seem to remember that, for which she was grateful.

“I think. . . maybe I knew him?” he mumbled into the cat’s fur.

 _Well, so much for that_.

“Did you?” she asked, keeping her voice gentle. Waterfall, waterfall. . .

“I dunno. Maybe.” Anakin sighed and rubbed his sleeve under his gummy nose before returning his hand to stroking down the cat’s back. “I thought you were gonna be on Dantooine for a while.”

“I was.” She squeezed his hand. “But nobody wanted me to be apart from you two right now -- least of all me.”

Anakin sniffed, a distinctly wet sound. “‘M glad you c-came back.”

“Me too, Ani. Oh, c’mere, sweetheart.”

He went to her arms, burying his face in her shoulder and sniffing harder. She let him curl up in her lap, the cat nestled between them, warm against her stomach.

“It’ll be all right, Ani,” she said quietly, resting her chin on top of his head. “I’ve got you.”

“‘S’what the burning man said,” Anakin mumbled.

She tipped her head back to look down at his face, but his eyes had slid shut. He was slipping into sleep. His lashes, dark with water, stuck together in little fans.

Resting her cheek against his hair, she kept her hand drifting gently up and down his back. The cat seemed perfectly content in his lap, eyes shut and paws tucked in, its flank rising with its breath.

 _Oh, Skyguy_. She pictured her own master, his arrogant smile and the scar over his eye. Her heart gave a very different ache than it did when she held Ani. _I miss you more than you’ll ever know, but what are you up to this time?_

Because, as her presence in this very kitchen went to show, when Skyguy meddled, redirecting the flow of time was the least of her worries.

* * *

Anakin felt much better with Master Soka back. He kept crying, though he didn’t know why, but Master Soka didn’t mind and just gave him more hugs. It was nice, with the cat curled up in his lap. But Anakin would much rather Obi-Wan was his normal size.

He didn’t mean to fall asleep after drinking his chocolate, but he woke up on Ahsoka’s couch under a blanket, with the cat sleeping near his face.

And he heard a ringing, like a bell tolling in the distance.

The box was calling for him.

When Anakin thought of the box, he felt hot and cold and scared. _You aren’t going to find answers in that thing,_ the burning man had said. _Aren’t your instincts telling you it’s dangerous?_

They’d been right. Anakin felt like he’d just come off another bout of Corellian fever.

The bell rang, and faded, and rang again.

He stretched out a hand and laid it against the Obi-Wan’s, his hand sinking into the soft strands. The cat made a soft, inquisitive noise.

“I’m getting you back,” Anakin whispered. “Promise.”

* * *

Master Soka didn’t ask him if he was sure. She just took him back upstairs, the cat cuddled close, and settled on the floor next to his cushion as Master Yoda brought out the box that had started all this. But he didn’t hand it to Anakin right away.

Anakin heard the bell tolling: high and clear, then low.

“Young Skywalker,” said Master Yoda. His face was serious. In the Force, Master Yoda was endless. “Know that to you, a danger this box presents. Yes?”

Anakin tightened his arms around Obi-Wan, who licked his wrist with a rough tongue. “Yes, Master.”

Master Yoda’s expression didn’t change. “Still willing to go, are you?”

Anakin nodded. He stroked his hand through Obi-Wan’s fur, feeling his breath move in and out. Master Yoda was quiet a long while. He closed his eyes. Anakin concentrated on the rise and fall of Obi-Wan’s flank beneath his palms.

“Then may the Force be with you, young one,” said Yoda.

With a wave of his hand, he brought the box over to Anakin’s waiting hands.

“I’m right here, Ani,” said Ahsoka, her fingers brushing his cheek.

He smiled at her. Then he focused on the box in his lap.

He held it in both hands, the cat in his lap, protected in the circle of his arms, and closed his eyes.

“Breathe in. . . and out. . . in. . .”

_and o u t_

He opened his eyes on the dark plane again. The box rose before him, bigger than before; the size of the Jedi temple as you walked up the front steps. His arms were empty -- he was alone in the dark.

 _I’m not alone,_ he told himself sternly, remembering what the burning man had said -- what Ahsoka had said.

He raised his head and started across the endless dark plane toward the box, which glowed like the tunnels in the deeps of Coruscant.

He took a deep breath -- and ran.

“ _Anakin!_ ” shouted a voice -- the voice of the burning man. Anakin ran faster. That voice flew at him, furious, a tower of fire. “ _Anakin, come back, dammit!”_

He could see doors on the side of the box, as tall as the doors into the temple, as he pelted across the plane. The doors had no handles.

He skidded to a stop just before he smashed into them, slamming his hands into the stone. It was warm, and it pulsed like a heartbeat.

Like his heartbeat, hammering hard with fear and the rush of running.

The burning man was coming after him, and Anakin bet he could run faster. He wouldn’t look, he wouldn’t turn --

 _“I’m here to find Obi-Wan!”_ he shouted, slamming his fist on the door. “ _Take me to him,_ _please_!”

The doors flared alight. He squinted his eyes against the red glow that grew to white and streaked the dark plane with searing brightness -- something brushed at his back, like a hand trying to grab on --

And then all the darkness turned to light -- the ground to shifting sand -- the black sky to aching blue -- the invisible horizon now running beneath the slow fall of two suns.

“Uh.” His real voice was back. He was panting from his run. “Not. . . what I had in mind.”

Shielding his eyes, he squinted at the landscape. Lots of sand, some rocks, and -- somebody in a brown robe, coming toward him. Anakin’s heart jumped, but this person didn’t seem to be on fire. _Obi-Wan?_

The person put back their hood, showing an old weathered face lined with white hair and a white beard. Not Obi-Wan -- too old.

“Luke?” said the old man, his voice confused. “What are you doing out here?”

“Who’s Luke?” His mom would correct him for being rude. _Introduce yourself, Ani._ “I’m Anakin Skywalker. Who are you?”

The old man stared. The sandy wind blew his robe around him, snatched at his shorn fringe. Suddenly he looked like his heart held an ocean of grief.

“I beg your pardon.” His voice sounded like it hadn’t had water in ages. “You. . . look like a boy I knew.” He tucked the ends of his robe around himself and took a slight step forward, as if afraid Anakin would run away. “What brings you out here, young one?”

His voice was gentle, kind. Anakin wondered why the Force had brought him to this sad, kind man when he needed to find Obi-Wan. Well, maybe he could help.

“I’m looking for someone,” he said. “My friend, Obi-Wan. I’m on some kind of Force journey, I guess. There was this box, and I asked it to help me find him, and it brought me here. You haven’t seen him, I guess?”

“Obi-Wan,” said the old man, as if tasting the name. “There’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”

“You _know_ him? Wait, who’re you?”

“Call me Ben. And yes, I knew him, once.” But then he shook his head slowly. “I’m afraid. . . he isn’t here, my young friend.”

His voice caught on _friend_ , like a hitch in cloth.

“I’d better keep looking, then,” Anakin said, resigned. But his legs didn’t want to move. Neither did the rest of him. He had the strangest feeling, like this sad man named Ben needed him.

“Yes, you’d better,” said Ben. He smiled, but it didn’t look like any smile Anakin had ever seen. It made his chest hurt.

“I can sense that he needs you,” said Ben. “Trust in the Force, and you will always find him.”

Anakin nodded slowly. The burning man had said the same thing.

“Yeah. I can. . . do that.”

Then the sky went dark.

Anakin’s heart dropped into a cold pit. Ben turned his face up, and suddenly he didn’t look sad. He looked -- almost dangerous.

“A Force journey, you said?” he asked Anakin sharply. “What brought you here?”

“A box. Older than the Jedi Order, somebody told me.” Anakin wanted to run, wanted to fight, but where to go, and whom to strike? “I -- they told me I shouldn’t come, but I _have_ to help Obi-Wan.”

Ben nodded once, decisive. The wind was kicking up around them, driving dark sand into the air as the sky turned red and the suns to black holes hanging in the bloody sky. It felt like the air was turning thin, and Anakin was struggling to breathe.

“Anakin. Focus on me.” Ben gripped his shoulder. His hand was warm. He pulled something off his belt, and with a searing hiss, a lightsaber blade split the dusky air, blue and cool.

“You’re a Jedi!”

“Yes.” He smiled, even with the sand whipping into his eyes, the sky falling down to meet them. Anakin was surrounded by a storm of fear, but with the old man’s arm around him, the lightsaber casting a bright shadow at their feet, he felt -- stronger.

“Go now,” said Ben. “I’ll hold him off.”

“But--” Go where? He didn’t want to leave Ben -- he felt like he’d known him forever, and it didn’t seem right, leaving him --

“You have your friend to find. You mustn’t forget your mission, Anakin.” He touched Anakin’s cheek. “You are stronger than the Dark side. Now go, my friend. Trust in the Force and it will guide you.”

Anakin clutched his robe, but he nodded. Right. He had a _mission_.

He took a deep breath, as deep as he could, and ran. The sand sucked at his feet, and the sky roared down, and when he looked over his shoulder, his heart pushing up in his throat, he saw Ben with his lightsaber raised, a black monster rising above him, bleeding lava --

And then the world went white and disappeared.

* * *

Anakin collapsed face-down on sweet-smelling dirt-grass-leaves.

“Pleh,” he said, spitting. “Better than sand, I guess.”

He knocked dirt off his face and squinted around. Dark -- smelled like dirt and trees. The darkness breathed around him, clicks and hoots and rustles. A forest?

And off through stripes of blackness, a fire.

_The burning man --_

He froze, hands pressed to the earth, heart thudding. But the fire didn’t come toward him. No one shouted his name.

Maybe it was just. . . a fire.

He got to his knees and crawled forward, then pushed to his feet and groped through the trees. Past the edge, in a big clearing, something was definitely burning -- a huge mass of wood and -- was that a _body_ in the flames?

Another strange man was standing in front of it, turning toward Anakin, who stood watching the fire with the body inside it claw at the starry sky. Anakin didn’t know this man either, but he was a lot younger than Ben. He was maybe around Obi-Wan’s age, with hair that looked gold where the firelight touched it.

“I.” He stared at Anakin. “Are you lost?”

“I’m looking for my friend, Obi-Wan,” he repeated. “I _really_ hope that’s not him.” He pointed at the burning body.

The young guy looked over his shoulder.

“No,” he said. His voice sounded kinda thick, but his face was turned away. “That’s definitely not Obi-Wan. Do you mean Obi-Wan Kenobi?”

“Yeah.” Anakin didn’t know why he kept meeting people who _knew_ Obi-Wan instead of the man himself, but he guessed that was part of finding him. “I’m on some kind of Force journey. I guess. There was this box -- I’m trying to find him, but it keeps taking me to weird places.”

He saw Ben standing before the bleeding monster and shivered, hard.

“Oh. I see. Yeah, Force journeys are weird.” The young guy made a smile, like he was having a laugh in his own head.

“No kidding.” Anakin rubbed his arms, feeling cold in spite of the fire. “A burning man told me Obi-Wan had to save himself, but he also told me we’re connected in the Force. I can’t just sit around, but I don’t know what to do.”

“No, you’re right. You can’t do nothing.”

The young guy turned and rummaged around in the dark, and then came over with a black cloak.

“Here, you look cold.” He tucked Anakin into the cloak. “I’m Luke, by the way. What’s your name?”

“Anakin.”

Luke paused, then stared at him hard. Anakin stared back. Like Ben, Luke felt kind of familiar, though Anakin was sure he’d remember meeting him. He was bright in the Force like a corona.

“Well.” Luke’s smile was funny, like Ahsoka’s sometimes got when the Force went all weird around her, happy and sad together. “It’s nice to meet you. Here, let’s sit down, huh? You look pretty tired.”

“I -- don’t know how long I can stay. Something’s. . . chasing me, and I have to find Obi-Wan before it catches me.”

Luke’s expression sharpened, like Ben’s in the desert when the sky went red. Then it went softer.

“Well, you’re safe with me. And if you’re on a Force journey, then you came here for a reason, right? Can’t leave before you figure out what it is.”

Anakin hesitated, but he nodded. He didn’t want to leave, anyway. The forest was dark and creepy, and his heart was still shaky from fleeing the desert. He gripped Luke’s hand and followed him to a fallen log. The fire still leapt and burned in front of them.

“Who is that?” Anakin asked, staring at the black outline of the body in the flames.

“My father,” Luke said quietly.

Oh. He remembered what they said on Mandalore. “I grieve with thee.”

Luke smiled down at him in a funny way. “Thanks. But you didn’t come here to talk about me.” He gave a little laugh. “You said you’re looking for Obi-Wan. Where did he go?”

“I dunno. I just -- asked the box to take me to him. Someone told me it was dangerous, and they tried to stop me, but I had to go anyway. You know?” He pulled Luke’s cloak tighter around him, shivering. Luke shifted closer and tucked an arm around him.

“Of course you did. You have to do what you can,” he said quietly. Then he smiled at Anakin, not quite as sad as Ben, but not happy either. His eyes were bright. “Sometimes it turns out to be more than you thought it would be. So there’s that.”

Anakin drank this in. A little voice inside him asked a tiny question, like it didn’t want to be loud.

“What if it’s. . . less?”

“Yeah. That happens.” Luke’s smile faded as he watched the fire. His dad. “And it hurts. But you try again. You. . . trust people who love you. You trust yourself. And you try again.”

Anakin nodded. He had a sudden surge of wanting to give him a hug. Luke seemed like he needed it. So he did.

Overhead, the stars went out, and the sky glowed red.

“Ah.” Luke stared upward, his arm firm around Anakin’s shoulders. Anakin burrowed into him, his teeth chattering. This got scarier each time.

“I-I think I have to go,” he whispered, trying to be brave.

“I’d say so. You’ve got somewhere to be.” Luke smiled, standing, and helped him down from the log. Then he drew a lightsaber hilt from his belt and the air glowed green and bright.

“Go on,” he said, as the roar of the falling sky filled the clearing. The pyre was growing, the flames leaping as high as a mountain, blowing Luke’s hair back from his face. “Go find your friend.”

And the body in the pyre -- Luke’s father, rose up, black and terrible and enormous. Luke turned and faced it, totally calm.

Anakin ran.


	4. Its Hungry Gorge

When the world brightened out of the dark plane this time, it was some sort of corridor. Anakin leaned against the wall, shaking, his heart sick. He sobbed, wishing for his mom, for Ahsoka, for Obi-Wan.

They’d been so brave, Luke and Ben, and so kind, helping him find Obi-Wan when they didn’t even know him, standing before that monster he’d brought. _Let them be okay,_ he prayed. _Please_.

He wiped at his face. He didn’t have time to sit here crying. He had to find Obi-Wan. He had to get moving before the monster came for him again.

Wait. This. . . was the Jedi temple. Only grayer than Anakin was used to. The windows were wet with rain.

The last two times, Anakin had run into someone helpful right away. This time, the corridor was empty.

 _Obi-Wan, please come home,_ he thought, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

He picked a direction and started walking. This wasn’t a main corridor -- it looked like the route to the storage closets. Who was he going to meet on their way to a storage closet?

Just as he was about to round the corner, someone else did, too, and smashed right into him. They both went to the floor with _oof_ s.

“Sorry,” groaned the other boy. When Anakin sat up, rubbing his forehead (which had smashed into the kid’s chin), and got a good look at him, his eyes tried to grow two sizes bigger.

“ _Obi-Wan?_ ”

“Yes?” The boy frowned at him. It was definitely Obi-Wan: that coppery hair, the big eyes, only a less sarcastic expression and a lot fewer inches of height. He was maybe only a few years older than Anakin. He didn’t even have a padawan braid.

Anakin’s heart tried to turn inside out. Luke and Ben had been Jedi, grown-up and strong. But when the monster came -- this Obi-Wan was just a kid. He didn’t even _have_ a lightsaber.

“Are you hurt?” Tiny Obi-Wan had a crease between his tiny eyebrows. “You’ve been crying. Here.” He dug in a pocket and produced a handkerchief.

“I’m on a Force journey.” Anakin took the handkerchief and blew his nose. “Turns out it’s not as fun as I thought it would be.”

Tiny Obi-Wan’s face could hold a lot of skepticism. “Aren’t you a little young?”

“I have to find my friend. He’s in danger.”

Tiny Obi-Wan looked at him like he was trying to solve a puzzle.

“Well,” he said, “if you came to me, I suppose the Force is telling me to help you. Who’s your friend?”

Anakin took in a deep breath and crunched the handkerchief between his fingers. “It’s you.”

Tiny Obi-Wan’s expression went brittle.

“I don’t appreciate the joke,” he said coldly. “We can’t be friends, because I certainly don’t know you.”

“It’s not a joke,” Anakin snapped, stung. “I’m Anakin, Anakin Skywalker. I’ve been more scared than any other time in my life trying to find you. We’re one with the Force. You and me and Master Soka.” He grabbed one of tiny Obi-Wan’s hands, hanging on when Obi-Wan tried to pull it away. “Obi-Wan, why don’t you. . .”

_Know me. Let me help. Let me in._

Tiny Obi-Wan stared at Anakin’s hand balled around his. His breath hitched.

The sky outside the windows turned red.

Anakin couldn’t breathe.

“Anakin?” Tiny Obi-Wan’s voice went high and scared. The whole temple shook around them. They clutched each other, tiny Obi-Wan’s eyes huge in the reddish dark.

Anakin should run. He should draw the monster away. He couldn’t let tiny Obi-Wan fight it. It was his monster, the burning man had warned him --

The wall crumbled down the corridor and the roaring howl poured in.

Anakin’s legs were boneless. Obi-Wan’s nails dug into him.

Black smoke poured into the corridor from the gaping hole. The monster came, towering, its hands metal, its face a blackened skull, its breathing cold and hissing, its lightsaber burning red. Anakin’s head was full of static. His eyes couldn’t see anything else.

“ _anakin! anakin look at me_.”

A hand on his cheek, and his eyes filled with Obi-Wan’s face. It was tiny Obi-Wan, but he was flickering, older, then younger -- he had a beard, he was covered in ash, he was wearing armor, his face was clean-shaven and free of sorrow, he was -- Ben? His lips moved, but Anakin couldn’t hear over the pounding roar.

The temple walls were shaking, the ground, the ceiling. A crack appeared by their feet; Anakin clung to Obi-Wan, gasping, his mouth filling with the taste of smoke. Obi-Wan pressed Anakin to him and whispered in his ear.

Obi-Wan turned his face upward. Anakin, clutching him, looked up. The monster reared above them, bleeding lava and smoke, yellow eyes burning behind a blackened, twisted mask.

“You can’t have him,” Obi-Wan said.

A bell tolled through the collapsing corridor, clear and pure, and the burning swelled to white.

* * *

“Ugh,” Anakin heard as he came to. He was lying curled in the curve of Obi-Wan’s body, safe and warm. Outside, he felt weak and shaky.

“Why are my clothes missing,” said Obi-Wan in croaking voice.

“You’ve been a bit of the wrong shape to wear them,” said Master Soka’s voice, sounding happy.

Anakin opened his eyes to find a pale Obi-Wan pulling Master Soka’s robe around him. When he saw Anakin was awake, he smiled. It was exhausted, but it was warm.

Master Yoda tottered up and poked Obi-Wan in the shoulder with his gimer stick. “Hm! Proper shape, you are, my young friend. Feel more settled, you do. What say you?”

“Yes, Master.” Obi-Wan’s voice was gravelly. He sat up, tugging the robe around him. Anakin sat up too. He felt like his insides had been scrubbed with a cheese grater and wondered how Obi-Wan felt.

Hesitant, he reached out with the Force. A gentle wave of warmth met him, and he burrowed into Obi-Wan’s side, his face hot and his eyes prickly.

“Come on, padawan,” Master Soka said gently. “Let’s get you something to wear.”

* * *

Back in their quarters, Anakin sat on the couch wrapped in a blanket while Obi-Wan went to get dressed. Master Soka brought him some hot chocolatl and sat tucked up against him as he drank it down, letting it warm his insides.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” she asked gently.

“I. . . don’t really remember.” He stared into his cup, reaching back into his memory, but he got only flashes -- a blue lightsaber, green. Twin suns. Fire against a starry sky. “I remembering running up to the box and the burning man trying to stop me, but after that. . .”

Something chasing him. Obi-Wan saying, “ _You’re stronger than the Dark side_.”

“Obi-Wan saved me,” he said, looking up at Master Soka’s complicated smile. “From. . . whatever was in there.”

She brushed a piece of hair off his cheek. “You saved him, too. Here.” Lifting another cup off the table, she tucked it into his hand. “Take this to him. Listen to what he wants to tell you.”

Clutching both mugs, he went.

Obi-Wan’s door was open. He was sitting on his bed, turning his lightsaber over in his hands.

He looked up when Anakin held out the cup.

“Chocolatl,” said Anakin. “To warm you up.”

“Now that I’m missing all that fur,” said Obi-Wan dryly. He took a long drink from the cup as Anakin perched next to him.

“Do you remember it? Being a cat.”

“Mm. More as one remembers a dream.” He smiled at Anakin from the side, complicated, like Master Soka’s smile. “Thank you for coming after me, my friend.”

“I had to.” Anakin scooted closer to him, happy when Obi-Wan wrapped an arm around him. “I couldn’t -- leave you there.”

Obi-Wan kissed the top of his head. For a while, they drank their chocolatl in silence. The sounds of the city thrummed outside the walls. Anakin thought of a desert, a forest, and was glad to be home.

Then Obi-Wan whispered, “The mission. It went. All wrong.”

Anakin pressed his cheek against Obi-Wan and listened.

“The landslide, it. We thought we were prepared, but it was bigger than we’d thought.” His breath was wet, uneven. He turned his face away. He didn’t pull his hand away but he didn’t uncurl it.

“And the children, they. . .” His shoulders curled. “I didn’t save all of them,” he said.

There was no wall between them now, and Anakin knew what it had been hiding: the ocean of grief, endless and crashing and black, like the dark of that endless plane. Anakin wanted to run at it and yell at the top of his lungs, but it would be just like doing that to the sea. It wouldn’t budge.

“I grieve with thee,” he said.

Obi-Wan turned his head a bit. His cheek was shiny with tear marks. “I. . . what?”

“Like they say on Mandalore. You know. When someone’s. . . lost someone, you say you grieve with them.”

“. . . Thank you.” Obi-Wan’s voice was thick. It hurt to hear it. It made Anakin heart feel too big and hot and tight.

“Mom says. . .”

He hesitated, but. This was why he was here, right? To help? That’s. . . someone had told him that.

“She says when we try our best to be brave and kind, we’re the best version of ourselves. And you’re the bravest person I know. But sometimes you’re not very kind to yourself. If Master Soka hadn’t saved a kid, you wouldn’t make her feel bad about it. You’d know she did everything she could. Like I know you did everything you could. If there’d been a way to save that kid, I know you’d have found it.”

“But that’s just it, Anakin,” said Obi-Wan, and he sounded so sad. “What do you do when your best isn’t good enough?”

 _Try your best and everything will work out,_ his mom told him. _Trust in the Force,_ said the Jedi. But he knew down in his bones that Obi-Wan had tried his best, had trusted in the Force, and he’d still lost that kid.

But. . .

“That happens. And it hurts. But you try again. You trust people who love you. You trust yourself. And you try again.”

Obi-Wan smiled, but looking at it hurt. Another tear marked a shining new trail on his cheek. “When did you get so wise?”

“I told you. I’ve been on a Force journey.”

He wriggled forward and pulled himself into Obi-Wan’s arms, and they closed strong around him.

“And it told me. . .” He didn’t remember a lot of it, but he remembered this. “You hold onto me, and Master Soka. Even. . . even when you lose, or feel everything’s gone wrong. Because we’re always with you.”

Obi-Wan’s arms tightened around him. His heart beat against Anakin’s ear.

“But what if the one I fail to save is you?”

 _Oh,_ Anakin thought.

“Everyone expects you to be my padawan. . . it’s my dearest wish.” His hand cradled the back of Anakin’s neck, warm and strong. “Don’t think it isn’t. But if I lost you. . .”

His arms tightened around Anakin’s back, and Anakin felt his doing the same.

 _No one can take you from me, or me from you,_ he thought fiercely. _No one._

“There’s nowhere you can go that I can’t find you,” he said.

He felt Obi-Wan’s chin move against his forehead, like he smiled. “Everything is connected in the Force?”

Just like Anakin had said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Something like that.”

“Then I suppose. . .” Obi-Wan’s breath left him in a long sigh, and somehow Anakin’s heart felt lighter. “I suppose that will have to be enough.”

* * *

The next day, Ahsoka applied and was granted leave of absence from active missions while her padawan recuperated fully. When she expressed remorse over not having done this earlier, Obi-Wan just gave her the stink-eye. She smiled and stifled her guilt.

Unfortunately, or perhaps not, Obi-Wan was removed from archive duty. Instead, he was kindly ordered to spend his time with Master Yoda. He didn’t discuss these sessions, and often came back somber and quiet. Ahsoka didn’t push him. She knew this was part of his healing.

Anakin, however, was distraught.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “I thought -- after I turned him back, I thought he’d be all better.”

He looked so sad and lost that Ahsoka’s heart crumpled. She smoothed his hair, and he crawled onto her lap, pushing his face into her shoulder.

“Obi-Wan just spent six weeks in the infirmary to heal from all his injuries,” she said. “Little hurts, like the time you fell out of the courtyard tree and Master Che patched you right up, those are over and done. But it took all that time for Obi-Wan because he was hurt so badly, he couldn’t heal right away. People’s hearts are the same. They need time, sweetheart.”

Anakin nodded slowly, his face still pressed into her shoulder. It had to be smushing his nose, but he seemed content. She knew that sometimes, you just needed to hide, the way Obi-Wan was hiding his heart.

“What you did is going to help him get better.” She twisted a few of his curls flat, smiling when they popped right back up. “We just have to wait.”

“S’hard,” he mumbled after a bit. “I c’n feel how he hurts.”

“So can I, sweetie.” She rested her hand on the back of his neck, feeling his pulse beat gently against her palm. “But we’re none of us alone.”

* * *

Time passed, like it always did.

Anakin worked on his droid, slowly putting his body and his protocols together. Obi-Wan took classes on advanced diplomacy and galactic politics as the tree in the courtyard grew thick green leaves for summer, and helped Anakin program his droid with all the smart stuff he learned. When the leaves turned gold, Obi-Wan went on a survivalist obstacle course on a distant moon that really tested Master Soka’s patience. She trained a number of excited younglings in Jar’Kai as the courtyard tree’s leaves dropped off in batches, the only real sign of oncoming winter on Coruscant.

Then the branches were bare, and Anakin’s droid was finished. Remembering how Obi-Wan had been embarrassed to find himself human again and naked, he’d put the droid’s plating on before the final test.

He’d wanted Obi-Wan to be here, but he wasn’t scheduled back for another two weeks and the project was due tomorrow. Besides, maybe it’d be nice to surprise him with a working droid.

“Is he ready?” Ahsoka asked, coming out of the kitchen with her holorecorder ready for filming. When she saw the droid propped against the couch, her face did something incredibly complicated, and the Force swirled in a whirlwind of color inside Anakin’s mind.

“What?” he asked. Sometimes this happened with Master Soka. He wondered if she’d tell him, this time.

“Oh.” She swallowed, then smiled. The Force leaped and danced, like a fountain. “I’ll. . . tell you one day. Okay?”

“That’s a promise,” Anakin said, and she nodded, eyes bright.

“Give it a go,” she said, lifting the holorecorder.

Anakin flicked the switch. The droid’s round eyes flickered with light, and he sat upright, his head swiveling to take in Ahsoka, then Anakin.

“Hello,” he said in a polite voice. “My name is See-Threepio, human-cyborg relations. How may I be of service?”

Ahsoka laughed, looking like she might cry, the Force thrumming with happiness. “Hi, Threepio. Can I call you Threepio?”

“Certainly, Master Ahsoka,” said Threepio. “And you must be Master Ani.”

Anakin grinned. “That’s me.” And then he laughed too, bouncing, because it had worked! He gave Threepio a hug.

“Oh my,” said Threepio.

“‘Oh my’ is right.”

Anakin jumped up. “Obi-Wan!” he yelled, and ran at the door. Obi-Wan stood in robes that had seen better days, his hair longer and a scruffy beard on his chin. He let his pack drop to the ground and swung Anakin up in a spinning hug. Anakin whooped.

“When did you get in, you sneaky monkey?” Ahsoka said, but she didn’t sound upset at all. “Come meet Threepio! You’re just in time.”

“Master Obi-Wan,” said Threepio, tottering to his feet. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“And you -- Threepio, is it?” Obi-Wan carried Anakin over to take a closer look. He freed one hand and shook Threepio’s, which made Threepio say, “Oh my. Yes, a standard form of greeting.”

Obi-Wan smiled from the droid to Anakin, then gave him a squeeze before putting him down. “Magnificent, Anakin. But surely you’re not going to leave him in that drab plating?”

“I think gold would look great,” said Ahsoka, her voice a little gruff, and the Force sparkled.

“Gold. Yeah.” Anakin beamed. “I can do that.”

“That would be quite dazzling, I must say,” said Threepio.

“It’ll be perfect,” said Ahsoka, shutting off the holorecorder. “Well? Where’s my hug?”

Obi-Wan went to bestow it while Anakin powered Threepio back down, the first test a success.

“I thought you weren’t due back for another two weeks,” said Master Soka. Her face was doing something weird again as she studied Obi-Wan’s beard.

“I wasn’t. But I sped through the course. I. . . missed home.”

Ahsoka’s smile was wobbly as she touched his cheek. “Well. Home missed you.”

 _That_ was the truth.

“So did you win?” Anakin asked, colliding with Obi-Wan’s side.

“It’s a survival course, Anakin, you don’t win or lose.”

“Sure you do,” said Anakin. “Losing a leg, coming in last. Growing a weird beard.”

“There weren’t exactly five-star accommodations in a remote forest,” said Obi-Wan dryly. “And I didn’t lose.”

“Thought so,” Anakin said smugly. “That beard is still weird, though.”

“I suppose I’ve got to dispose of it straightaway,” said Obi-Wan. “To please you.”

“I dunno. It. . . reminds me of someone.”

Ahsoka turned away, smiling and clearly trying to hide it.

Obi-Wan lifted both eyebrows. “‘Someone’?”

Twin suns.

“Just. . . someone,” Anakin said thoughtfully.

Obi-Wan tugged on Anakin’s fringe. “And _you_ remind me of a wild bantha. Why hasn’t Master Kith cut your hair yet?”

“My curls are _precious_.”

Still turned away, Master Soka made a funny choking noise. Obi-Wan must not have had to control his expression much while he was growing beards on far off moons, because his smile crinkled up his eyes.

“I am going to shave,” he said. “This thing itches.”

He ruffled Anakin’s hair as he passed (“Arrrgh,” said Anakin), but he stopped a moment beside the couch to look quietly at Threepio in his silvery chassis. Master Soka stepped up behind Anakin and draped her forearms over his shoulders, smiling down at him when he reached up and linked their hands.

Obi-Wan smiled over his shoulder at Anakin, and the Force danced with light.

“You’ve done wonderfully, my young friend.”

The sea between them glittered, sunlight on waves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic started when I thought to myself, "What if Obi-Wan got turned into a cat."
> 
> The chapter titles come from William Blake's poem, "A Divine Image" (because I'm pretentious like that; I must admit to it.)
> 
> _Cruelty has a Human Heart  
>  And Jealousy a Human Face   
> Terror the Human Form Divine   
> And Secrecy, the Human Dress _
> 
> _The Human Dress, is forged Iron  
>  The Human Form, a fiery Forge.   
> The Human Face, a Furnace seal'd   
> The Human Heart, its hungry Gorge._
> 
> Thank you, Madam Fishy, for the wonderful gift of "Tano & Kenobi," one of my all-time favorite stories ♥♥♥


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